Teen Tech

OK,

I have in front of me three brocures from Alltel, Sprint, and Tracfone (I didn’t grab a Verizon brocure), trying to find the best value phone service.  The companies always say “This phone free with 2 year service agreement.” Is this a real deal?  Let’s look at this:

2 Year Basic agreements:

Sprint:
Nightly calling starting at 9
No Roaming charges
Unlimited Night and Weekends
Nationwide Long Distance
200 anytime  minutes
29.99 / month –>  719.76 / 2 years

Alltel:
200 Anytime minutes
1000 Night and weekend minutes
Unlimited Calls to and from your favorite number
Text messaging 10 cents a Message In/Out
Additional Minutes 15 cents Each
34.99 / month –> 839.76 / 2 years

Tracfone:
400 minutes per year long card (800 for two cards = two years)
99.99 / year –> 199.98 / 2 years

So, if you can only talk for 800 minutes in two years (that’s only 13 hours over two years), then Tracfone has the best value, and if you don’t need any of the extra features.  It depends on what features you need / want, and your coverage area.  The reason that they can give you a 50 dollar phone with a two year contract, is because the phone probably only took 10$ to make, and you are agreeing to pay almost a grand for that “free” phone.  What cell service you choose is up to you, but look at the long term costs of what you are getting.

Last night was the most intense sporting event (for me at least) that I have ever seen televised.  It was MLG’s (Major Leage Gaming) finals for the national title held in Vegas.  At this time, all of the bracket information that I’m giving out, may be incorrect as MLG’s site has not been updated with the new information at this time.  I do know for a fact though that this is the very last year that MLG will be holding Halo 2 leagues because of the releas of Halo 3, so last night was the final Halo 2 matches to be played in that professional circuit. 

Going in, there were a total of five teams left, Team 5k, Team Str8 Rippin, Team Agency, Team Carbon, and of course Team Final Boss.  Teams Carbon and Final Boss were my favorites for making it to the finals, but I wanted Final Boss to come out on top.  In the end though, Str8 Rippin knocked out 5K, Agency knocked out Str8 Rippin, Agency knocked out Str8 Rippin, then finally Carbon Knocked out Agency.  It had happened.  The single match that I’ve always wanted to watch with the new rosters, Carbon vs. Final Boss.  Last year, team Carbon let “Strongside” go, and team Final Boss picked him up, but right after Carbon fired him, they went on to win the national title, so it was a grudge match.  My favorite player in MLG is Dave “Walshy” Walsh on team Final Boss.  Red Bull sponsorships, and a nice paycheck from MLG, he is considered by many to be the top player on the planet. 

In the Carbon vs. Final Boss, it was a first to 50 team slayer match on midship, which is not my favorite map at all.  The game was within 2 kills for almost the entire match with the lead being handed off back and forth.  In the end, Team Final Boss won 50-48, and they were handed a check for 100,000$.  It was an amazing match.  Very intense.  Every player played at the top of their game.  “Ogre 2,” who is one of a set of twins on team Final Boss (”Ogre 1″ and “Ogre 2″) was given the MLG MVP award because he had over 160 more kills then deaths throughout the season.  Simply amazing.  In the end, hard work, dedication, and a little red bull got them through.  It was a sight to behold.

Well,

I made Eagle. I went against the eagle board of review last night and I got confirmed. The review was easy. Six appointed members quizzing me about scouts and my life, some questions hard, some were easy. One of the members asked me “What is the secret to your success, and how can you teach it to others?” I didn’t know how to answer, so I told him “If I told you what my secret was, it wouldn’t be a secret.” The room cracked up, and just continued. That came up later after the deliberation about me, in the closing comments, where they said that by my making that comment, it showed that I was actually paying attention to every word and not just the important stuff. Next, I plan my ceremony, and that’s where I’ll formally accept the award.

Tuesday is going to be one of the most important nights of my life, and I’m not really exaggerating.  Tuesday at 6:00, I’m going against my Eagle Scout Board of Review.  It’s equivalent is when a president appoints a position, and the senate has to approve or deny their appointance.  Same concept.  Seven years of my life have been wrapped up in this one evening.  Intense.

On a side note, our phone service has been out for the past three days.  I’m on dialup, so when the phone goes out, the internet also goes out.  It’s been terribly stressful for me because my mom has become accustomed to blaming me when the phone goes out because of my computers.  It took a lot to convince her that the  problem was with the phone company.  Then, I had to actually call Verizon about 6 times over the matter of three days trying to get something done.  They came out on the first available day and “fixed” something, but still no dial tone, then I was pissed because they promised that the issue was fixed, then it was another two days and many calls later that they actually fixed it.  Now, I have the internet, and am here updating my blog.

Hello everybody.

I got a letter from Michigan Tech. I was declined acceptance. Crap. That was plan A. I’m still going to go to a University, it will just take longer.

One day about two weeks ago, my stepmom and dad spent the entire day watching “Beauty and the Geek”. Wow. Those geeks are worse than I am, and the beauties that they got were completely dumb. “Who won the Civil War”, “Well, we did. We won all the wars”. That’s the kind of stuff that they said. The show was about the teaching of the geeks to be social and the “beauties” to be smart.

For my birthday, my dad got me the official Eagle Scout scrapbook and Numb3rs, Season 3. I’m working on getting through numbers episode by episode.

That was my birthday weekend in a nutshell.

So, Here’s a little logic puzzle.  Let’s see who can figure it out.

1. There are five people - each living in a house with a different number of bedrooms, each with a different occupation, each enjoying a different entertainment, each drinking a different liquid, and each driving a different car.
2. The travel agent lives in a house with five bedrooms.
3. The manager drinks Gatorade,
4. The owner of a Porsche Lives in a one bedroom house.
5. The engineer drives a Ford.
6. The one-bedroom house is immediately to the right of the four bedroom house.
7. The person who likes opera also drinks Mountain Dew.
8. Watching ball games is the favorite past-time of the person who lives in the three-bedroom house
9. The person in the middle house drives a Cadillac.
10. The salesperson lives in the first house on the left.
11.  The person who likes to watch movies lives in the house next to the person who drinks water.
12. The person who likes ball games lives next to the person who drinks green tea.
13. The person who likes to go camping drives a DeLorean.
14. The teacher likes to travel.
15. The salesperson lives next to the house with two bedrooms.

Here are all of the options available:

# of Bedrooms:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Career:

Travel Agent, Teacher, Salesperson, Manager, Engineer

Entertainment:

Camping, Ball Games, Opera, Movies, Travel

Drinks:

Mountain Dew, Water, Lemonade, Green Tea, Gatorade

Cars:

Cadillac, Ford, DeLorean, Pontiac, Porsche

See if you can figure out the puzzle which includes matching each person with the house, car, career, drink, and past time, as well as figuring out which order their houses are in.

Have Fun